It’s been 6 months since NYC’s historic Climate March brought 400,000 people to the streets to demand climate action. So what have those climate activists been doing to build on that incredible momentum?

Noise annoys, as British punks The Buzzcocks said back in the 70s. And in NYC, despite the new noise ordinances passed in 2007, there were more than 140,000 noise complaints dialed in to 311 between the winter of 2013 and the fall of 2014. That’s one complaint every four minutes, so it’s clear that noise pollution is not a small problem at all.

Since former NYS Governor Mario Cuomo passed away on New Year’s Day at age 82, journalists across the state have been commenting on his legacy, including his leadership on education, AIDS, transportation safety and last but not least, the environment.

If you haven’t been following so far, fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a process whereby large amounts of chemically-laced water are forced through relatively fragile shale rock formations, breaking them and forcing trapped gas to flow into wells. There is an immense shale formation called the Marcellus Shale, part of which lies under New York State’s Southern Tier (the area near Binghamton).

For the past two years, the NY-Sun Initiative has been working to reach Gov. Cuomo’s goal of increasing New York State’s solar capacity to 3 gigawatts by 2023. So far, the state has installed or contracted 316 megawatts of solar electricity, more than the entire previous decade. And from now until January 30th, schools, non-profits and governments will be able to upgrade to solar systems for bargain basement prices.

This holiday season, lots of people will be getting shiny new toys to play with: game consoles, TVs, computers, tablets, phones and smartwatches. Some people will even get new appliances like refrigerators, dishwashers and other appliances. Even though holiday shopping is down this year, rest assured that the holidays still add up to a lot of trash and waste.